[J.OT13]

Having operational plans for major events and protests that would see trains short turn at Bank (or Lyon, with link to the Confederation Line) and Rideau coming from the Alexandra Bridge seems reasonable to me.

The difference between the Confederation Line and the STO line is capacity needs, but also people's destination. The Confederation Line tunnel is a through train traffic corridor that carries the entire east-west transit spine of Ottawa. For the STO Line, Downtown Ottawa is just a terminus. The transit loop is a bonus. Whether trains short turn or complete the loop, the capacity remains just about the same and it makes little difference to any one person's overall trip, compared to Confed, where downtown is not the final destination for everyone.

The capacity of the STO Line is actually higher with the surface loop option because trains have two entry points into Ottawa, while with the tunnel, the loop would not happen. It may be technically feasible, but I don't think there is any apatite for such a expensive and complicated project.

Finally, a surface Confederation Line would need to cross all of the intersections through Albert and Slater and interact with cars coming in and out of parking garages. That's the best case scenario as long as the trains had an exclusive RoW. The STO trams on the north side of Wellington will only come into contact with maybe 4 driveways/intersections between the Portage Bridge and Bank and a few pedestrian crosswalks.